Ernakulam: Kerala government faced a major setback on constituting judicial inquiry against central probe agencies investigating the Gold scam case as Kerala High Court issued stay order in the matter. The Kerala HC sent notice to the state government after it received the petition from the Enforcement Directorate .
The court gave the order on ED's statement that the state government does not posses the power to appoint a commission of inquiry against the central agencies. The court also discarded Kerala's point that ED has no right in approaching the court against the Judicial Commission.
The state government had appointed former High Court Justice VK Mohanan as the commissioner to conduct the probe
The tiff between the state government and the central agencies emerged when allegations were made against the central agencies investigating the gold smuggling case of fabricating evidence against the chief minister, speaker and other cabinet ministers. Following this, ED approached the High Court against Judicial Commission probe.
Enforcement Directorate argued in the the court that appointing Judicial Commission was an abuse of official designation by the Chief Minister. They added that the judicial commission's inquiry includes audio recording of Swapna Suresh (the accused in the gold smuggling case) and Sandeep Nair's letter.
The central probe agency also informed the court that the parallel investigation in money laundering case, which is related to gold smuggling scam will ruin the evidence. 'The Judicial Commission might summon the prime accused in the case and it will frail ED's inquiry on gold smuggling scam.' Thereby the judicial inquiry need to be get a stay,' said ED at Court.
